Spiritual Awakenings
Listen: “Your Heart is an Empty Room” by Death Cab for Cutie
Our spiritual journey in life is never a straight line; it’s not like a growth graph that’s moving up and to the right all the time. Instead, it’s full of twists and turns, ups and downs. It includes faith adventures, spiritual awakenings, and soul unravellings. Sometimes we are simply picking up the broken pieces, rearranging them, and finding the resources to hope and dream again—believing that new beginnings lead to new possibilities.
Over the past year, I have been doing podcast interviews with interesting friends and acquaintances on a variety of topics, but the common theme is always spirituality as it emerges in the spiritual journeys of each person’s life story. If you think about how Ken Burns has chronicled Americana through documentary storytelling by exploring topics like Jazz, Baseball, National Parks, Wars, and Prohibition, I am making a humble attempt to explore spirituality through the stories of individuals. I have interviewed mental health workers, CEO’s, singer/songwriters, authors, cyclists, faith leaders, meditation and yoga instructors, and recovery workers.
Over the past forty years, I have served as a pastor/teacher to people in multiple states in America, and I have taught internationally as well. As I travel and teach, I love hearing people share their spiritual journeys and their spiritual awakenings. I have also been working in the recovery community in Kansas City for the last two years, and I have heard hundreds of stories from people in recovery. Many people talk about a spiritual awakening as a result of working the Twelve Steps: “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”
I have been pondering the many different ways in which people experience spiritual awakenings. I have also reflected on my own spiritual journey. Bottom line: I love to encourage and support people in their journey of spiritual growth and transformation. Some of these experiences can be sudden and revolutionary and some can result from a slow, educational process. Here are a few of the ways I have observed spiritual awakenings in others or myself.
Encounter with nature. It’s hard to get out in nature and not see beauty all around us. Sometimes we can become fascinated with a fantasy world in which tree leaves are pink and dogs are purple (like children’s fantasy or science fiction), but is it any less fascinating to meditate on a tree whose leaves are green in the summer and bright yellow, orange, and red in the fall? Or the variety of wild flowers whose colors display the full palette? Beauty in nature awakens us to something transcendent and greater than us. It speaks to us. “Just ask the animals, and they will teach you. Ask the birds of the sky, and they will tell you. Speak to the earth, and it will instruct you” (Job 12:7-8).
Mystical experiences. This is a fascinating category. I have found that many people have had mystical or paranormal experiences, but they are afraid to talk about them for fear of being labeled mentally off. These experiences can be hard to describe, but they may include encounters with dead relatives, vivid dreams, ghosts, evil presences, spirit animals, visions of Jesus or other saints, and mystical voices. Mystical experiences can awaken us to something transcendent and greater than us. Properly discerning and interpreting these experiences can lead to spiritual growth and transformation.
Divine timing. There are a host of experiences people have which point to divine timing of some sort. Maybe it’s the Universe syncing up in our circumstances and opening or closing an opportunity in such a way that we can’t deny the numinous nature of the timing. Maybe it’s a well-timed message that comes to us through a friend, a loved one, a song, a speaker, a teacher, a book, a child, or your pet dog—or maybe a blog! Divine timing can awaken us to something transcendent and greater than us.
Emptiness of craving. All of the major faith traditions have reflections on the dark side of desire or cravings. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the desire or lust for money, sex, and power can distort the true meaning of life. These false gods can destroy our lives in the same way that addictive substances and behaviors can destroy our lives. In the Buddhist tradition, cravings are the primary source of suffering. True spiritual awakening can occur when we are liberated from cravings. Regardless of one’s faith tradition, everyone has experienced the dissatisfaction of misplaced desires or the emptiness of more, more, more. Always wanting what we don’t have. An encounter with emptiness can awaken us to something transcendent and greater than us.
Soul unravellings. Life crises always contain a double edge. By life crises, I am talking about life circumstances that shake the foundations of our life. They can strike haphazardly without cause or they can result from a series of our own choices. David Brooks wrote an excellent book on this topic called The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life. He talks about the four major pillars on which we build our life—career, marriage, faith, and community. When one or more of these are shattered (illness, tragedy, broken dreams, etc.), we can go through a deconstruction of our faith and life. Even though these crises are traumatic, people can rebound and experience post-traumatic growth. Dark days, months, and years can lead to seasons of spiritual growth and transformation. An encounter with darkness can awaken us to something transcendent and greater than us.
Educational encounters. Sometimes people experience spiritual awakenings as a slow, learning process. No bright lights. No sudden transformation. Just a slow, winding, sporadic process of growth. This type of spiritual awakening usually doesn’t happen by accident. Someone usually leans into their spiritual hunger intentionally by connecting with a spiritual group of some sort. It might be a church, a synagogue, a yoga class, a recovery group, a Bible study, a seminar, a book study, a spiritual retreat, a spiritual mentor, or a college class, but you lean into a growth process with other people. Over a period of time, you will be able to look back and see that you have grown and developed spiritually.
These are only a few of the ways people experience spiritual awakenings. I believe it is best to lean into these experiences of spiritual awakening. Treat them as a treasure to be explored and nurtured. If you ignore them, they will gradually diminish and our spirituality will become anemic.
My purpose for starting Spirituality Adventures is to ignite spiritual growth and transformation through blogs, podcasts, events, Bible teaching, small groups, and outreach. Check out all the ways you can engage in bonus content at our website: spiritualityadventures.com. Thanks for reading and supporting.
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2021
